Book #65 of 2018: A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan (The Memoirs of Lady Trent #1) This is a very well-crafted story that, while not quite my cup of tea, seems likely to be the perfect book / series for plenty of other readers. Set in a Victorian-style era of a world much …
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Book #64 of 2018: The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken (The Darkest Minds #1) This dystopian YA novel struck me as a very capable early draft that was unfortunately rushed to print before its full potential could be unlocked. From the narrator not really seeming like a teenager who’s spent the past six years of …
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Book #63 of 2018: Frogkisser! by Garth Nix This princess-on-a-quest story for middle readers recalls earlier gems of the genre like Dealing with Dragons or The Two Princesses of Bamarre, although it feels a tad long and aimless in comparison. Author Garth Nix delivers a capable heroine (with nary a love interest in sight) and …
Movie #6 of 2018: Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert (2018) It’s hard for me to be objective about this musical, a personal favorite that I’ve now seen in at least five different productions. So I love that NBC aired it as their latest live stage performance, even if some of the directing choices struck …
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Movie #5 of 2018: The House (2017) This comedy about yuppie parents running an illegal casino to pay for their daughter’s college tuition is more memorable for some gross blood spurt effects than for any particular cleverness in its writing. The cast is great, but they aren’t given much to work with; Jason Mantzoukas ends …
Book #62 of 2018: The Dry by Jane Harper (Aaron Falk #1) At this point, the damaged narrator who returns home in the wake of tragedy only to face small town politics and dark family secrets is pretty much a staple of the crime thriller genre. These stories can sometimes feel rote, but debut author …
Movie #4 of 2018: Hidden Figures (2016) Great cast and soundtrack, in service of the little-known true story of the black female mathematicians at NASA during the 1960s space race. There are some plot elements that strike me as a bit oversimplified, especially having read the book that the script was based on, and some …
Book #61 of 2018: Batman: Nightwalker by Marie Lu Batman’s origin story has been told and retold countless times, and this latest version struggles to justify its existence against that long history. The premise of an 18-year-old Bruce Wayne playing Silence of the Lambs with a femme fatale in Arkham Asylum is decent / original …
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Book #60 of 2018: We Are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson A powerful story of a teenager struggling to go on in the aftermath of his boyfriend’s suicide. As in the similarly exemplary A Monster Calls, it’s possible to read the heightened elements of the novel — in this case, the aliens who abduct …
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Book #59 of 2018: Catch-22 by Joseph Heller I fell in love with this satirical novel back in high school, and I wish I could say it holds up just as well today. And on some levels, it absolutely does: it remains a brilliant skewering of military doublespeak and the absurdity of war, and author …
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